


Bewildered and Wary

by FifteenDozenTimes



Category: Beyond Belief - Fandom, The Thrilling Adventure Hour
Genre: F/M, Tumblr ficlet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-11
Updated: 2015-11-11
Packaged: 2018-05-01 05:13:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5193563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FifteenDozenTimes/pseuds/FifteenDozenTimes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the prompt "I had learned early to assume something dark and lethal hidden at the heart of anything I loved. When I couldn’t find it, I responded, bewildered and wary, in the only way I knew how: by planting it there myself."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bewildered and Wary

Frank looks at the world through blood-colored glasses, has a gift for seeing the danger, the rage, the darkness of anything he encounters. It more than makes up for his inability to contextualize, for the way his view blurs and obscures the levels of darkness, the immediacy of the danger, the sorrow behind the rage.

Sadie Parker glows so brightly it blinds him in an entirely different way. His instincts tell him to run away, get somewhere he can catch his bearings, but his instincts can go to Hell. Frank stumbles around her, falling ever deeper, and by the time his eyes adjust to the light he’s in more trouble than he’s been in for a long, long time.

He’s in love, absolutely, with this glowing, laughing, sparkling, overwhelming force of a woman, so in love he can’t tear himself away. She has a warm heart and a biting wit, a taste for strong drinks, expensive clothing, and Frank’s company.

Frank loved Catherine for the brokenness that matched his own, loves Jonesy for the way he takes a metaphorical punch, loves Mendels for the weight he carries on his shoulders like it might crush him any minute but he’ll deal with it when the time comes. Frank loves Sadie for the light she blinded him with that first night, and for maybe the first time in his life, Frank is well and truly terrified.

“Surely there’s something,” he says, late one night after too many (not enough) drinks and too many (not enough) sweet, life-affirming kisses. “Some dark secret from your past.”

“Why, Frank Doyle,” Sadie says, with one of those musical laughs that makes him feel like flying, “I do believe you’re interrogating me.”

“I suppose I am.”

“There’s only one thing you need to know at this point, love, and that is if you think I’ll hand you an excuse to leave, if you think I’ll let you leave at all, I’ll have one of those lovely decorative swords off the wall and your head at your feet before you can blink.”

Her eyes flash, in that instant, from sweet, enamored warmth to iron and steel, and, finally, Frank understands what’s happening here.

Frank loves Sadie for the light of her, sure, but he loves her more for the impenetrable force at the core of her, that barrier even those demons he’s never been able to silence can never hope to penetrate.


End file.
